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The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal concerning deprivation of citizenship on grounds of fraud under s.40(3) of the British Nationality Act 1981 (“the 1981 Act”). The Appellant maintained a lie about his nationality over many years, including in his citizenship application. He argued that the Upper Tribunal had been wrong to set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (“FTT”), arguing that the FTT had been entitled, in light of the submissions made to it, to allow the appeal. The Court of Appeal rejected that argument, deciding that the FTT was bound to decide the appeal by reference to SSHD’s decision read as a whole, which it had failed to do.
The Court of Appeal declined to consider whether the approach to deprivation appeals set out by the Supreme Court in R (Begum) v SSHD [2021] UKSC 7; [2021] AC 765 (a case concerning the deprivation power in s.40(2) of the 1981 Act) applied to s.40(3) appeals, but “acknowledged the apparent force” of the submission made by the Appellant that the reasoning in Begum did not apply in s.40(3) cases, save in relation to the question of whether SSHD’s discretion should be exercised differently (see the judgment at [88]-[95]).
The judgment may be accessed here.
Julia Smyth represented the Secretary of State, leading Rajkiran Barhey of 1 Crown Office Row at the hearing and Harriet Wakeman at the skeleton argument stage.
